“Many more oil & gas companies stepping up for the first time on methane and emissions, and we have language on fossil fuels in our final agreement for the first time ever,” says Dr. Sultan al-Jaber, COP28 President
At COP28, we witnessed a historic step forward on climate action. On the final day of the COP28 climate change conference, Sultan al-Jaber, COP28 president, announced that 200 parties had committed to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” As Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, noted in his closing speech, action must now follow: “All governments and businesses need to turn these pledges into real-economy outcomes, without delay.”
GHGSat was privileged to attend the COP28 event in UAE, working closely with the Canadian and Quebec Government delegations. COP remains the best platform we have for bringing the global community together to share knowledge, debate and – ultimately – develop solutions. We saw first-hand participants’ energy, passion, and drive to deliver real change.
An example of this was the signing of a new Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter (OGDC) by more than 50 companies collectively responsible for over 40% of global oil production. They pledged to end routine flaring, reduce upstream methane emissions to near-zero by 2030, and achieve Net Zero emissions from operations by 2050 at the latest. The global warming potential of methane makes this deal particularly significant.
We are encouraged that one of the key tenets of the Charter is the ambition to measure, monitor and independently verify emissions for public reporting. Transparency on emissions is a critical first step towards mitigating them.
ADNOC, the national oil company of the UAE, is one of the signatories to OGDC and at COP28, GHGSat signed a strategic partnership with them and Yahsat to cut methane emissions from the global energy sector, starting with NOCs in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. The collaboration was supported by the COP28 Energy Transition team as a flagship Lighthouse project due to its ambitious scope and because it is precisely designed to quickly bring the concrete emissions reductions needed to realize the ambitious objectives of the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter and the Global Methane Pledge.
In addition to the progress on the Charter, COP 28 also saw several new countries join the Global Methane Pledge, including Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. This is a crucial step towards action in these countries, which sets the stage to deploy technologies like satellite monitoring to identify opportunities for action.
In Dubai, many countries also announced new plans to cut methane emissions, including the United States and Canada.
The U.S. Environment Protection Agency’s new rulings include bringing to an end the routine flaring of natural gas, monitoring for methane leaks at wells and compressor stations, and a new ‘Super Emitter Program’ using remote sensing expertise – like GHGSat’s – to detect large methane releases. The EPA claims these measures will prevent an estimated 58 million tons of methane from being released by 2038, roughly equivalent to the carbon dioxide emitted by the power sector in 2021. A new Federal Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Strategy, announced ahead of COP, will run in tandem to ensure effective action is being taken.
Canada also demonstrated its ambition to tackle methane emissions. Minister Steven Guilbeault announced new draft methane regulations at the COP28 Global Methane Pledge Ministerial, aimed at cutting emissions by at least 75% by 2030. As well as banning flaring and monitoring for leaks, the new rules also call for a Methane Centre of Excellence to be set up to improve the understanding and reporting of methane emissions. In his speech, the Minister referenced GHGSat as one of the technology solutions ready to support actions for reductions today.
This point is key and underscores a major theme running throughout the Conference: the data is available today –now we need to act on it. GHGSat’s emissions intelligence is helping customers in the oil and gas sector reduce their emissions today – and supports the international effort to improve our understanding of industrial emissions. To that end, we also announced at COP28 a new agreement to provide satellite direct measurements capacity and data to the UN Environment Programme’s International Methane Emissions Observatory via our partnership with the UK Space Agency and the Satellite Applications Catapult.
With methane and monitoring at the heart of determined pledges made at COP28, it was fitting that GHGSat announced its monitoring ambition: a commitment to measure methane and carbon dioxide emissions at every industrial site, every day, worldwide by 2026. This will involve us expanding our satellite fleet and processing capability, among other things. It is a huge undertaking but one we are ready for. Our commitment to climate action demands no less.
